Colleen and I recently traveled to the Coachella Valley of Southern California for the wedding of my UCLA roommate, Mike Rabinovitch and Gabrielle Scheibe.  The event was held at The Parker in Palm Springs, a phenomenal location at this time of the year.

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a big fan of lawn olympics, and the Parker had them in spades, from bocce to table tennis to croquet to giant chess.

We were fortunate to be able to spend time with some great friends from business school and Manhattan Beach: Rob & Nicole, Chris & Kerry, Tim & Heather, Chris & Teri, Florian & Patti, Greg, and of course Mike, Gabrielle and their families.

Colleen and I ripped it up on the dance floor - we figured that we danced at least five hours straight between the wedding and the after party.

Colleen was pretty excited about the “photo booth”, an awesome wedding idea. The company is called LA Photo Party and they set up this photo area, complete with props and costumes, where everyone stops by and takes candid pics.  They print them out right there, and you add your favorites to a photo album for the wedding party.  They even post them online.  Of course we had to take a couple…like 30 of them.  Here’s our fave.  Isn’t Colleen beautiful?

Ro had a great weekend with Grandma Chili, but we were all very happy to have the family back together when we got home.  Sadie was finally able to relax as well.

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This is the title of one of Rowan’s favorite books by Sandra Boynton, so it was only fitting that Rowan dressed like a green dinosaur for Halloween!  It could be argued that it could also be a dragon, but we’re sticking with dino.  Halloween was a play-filled day and I think I was more worn out than Rowan or John.  We started the day with a Halloween party for our playgroup at Megan’s house.  All the kiddies dressed up as if it was a special on the Animal Planet (lobsters, hens, ladybugs and more) and humored us as we all snapped away with our cameras.  The momarazzi were out in full effect.  Megan treated us to some delicious homemade butternut squash soup - thanks Megan!

Later in the day, Chili and I put on our tattoo sleeves, John put on his hamburglar suit and we headed out for some stops at our neighbors’ houses before attending a block party down the street.  Again, all of Rowan’s friends were impressive: ducks, monkeys, bees…

We headed home once I started to stress about missing the trick or treaters visiting our house - I had two GIANT bags of candy from Costco and we had to get home and pass that out.  I have to say Halloween is so much more fun with Rowan around than it has been in the last few years.  Now I don’t have to worry so much about what my costume will be, just Rowan’s

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Today we traveled out to Marble Falls to let Rowan run around at Sweet Berry Farm.  Marble Falls is a quaint little town about 45 minutes from our house in the Texas Hill Country.  The farm was kiddie heaven, with face painting, pony rides, goats, scarecrow stuffing and hayrides.  We indulged in their strawberry popsicles and fresh pumpkin and strawberry ice cream, which Ro loved! 

Rowan explored all the pumpkins that were piled high everywhere.  To him they were all “balls”.  He looked perplexed as we fed the goats and he loved the tractor especially since this one was more his size than the one in New Jersey.  We left with a few pumpkins and a very cool gourd shaped like a swam. 

John’s favorite part was that we were able to go to Blue Bonnet Cafe for lunch and without much of a wait.

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Rowan, Grandma Chili and myself experienced our first east coast Fall this past weekend.  We traveled to Red Bank, NJ to visit my sister and brother-in-law.  Their beautiful Fall puts our Austin Fall to shame.  The leaves were beginning to change, every house had mums and pumpkins plus tons of Halloween decorations, we wore jeans during the day and used a down-comforter at night, drank real apple cider, and ate raspberries off the bush - it was all so picture perfect!

Leslie showed Rowan that the playgrounds in NJ are the best and we enjoyed lots of chocolate from our favorite chocolate shop downtown.  Rowan traveled like a pro despite his ear infections coming back again.  Thanks Leslie and Paul for a fun weekend!

p.s.  - I think Sadie misses being our only child.  As soon as John dropped us off at the airport she hopped in the back seat of the car and made herself comfortable in Rowan’s car seat.  Needy much?  Or just a warm soft chair?

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Rowan has been busy piling up more frequent flier miles with a trip out to Tucson (my hometown) 2 weeks ago to see Grandpa Justin!  I was excited to go back, it had been almost 3 years.  Rowan got a chance to meet Dad and Pilar’s desert turtles and visit the Tucson zoo.  Of course we hit up my favorite places like Baggins and Casa Molinas. 

We were also in town to attend Amy Wattis’ wedding, who is a friend of mine since childhood.  It was a beautiful and fun wedding.  Considering Ro had a severe ear infection and was stuffy/fussy, it was a great trip and we can’t wait to go back. 

This past weekend we took Rowan to the Dinoland exhibit at the Zilker Botanical Gardens.  John and I are so excited that Rowan can now go to zoos, parks and gardens and be some what amused.  We had annual passes to Disneyland when we were in LA and frequented the SD zoo and Sea World whenever we could.  Now with Rowan we get to do fun outtings as a family!

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